jasin
Explorer
Some time ago, I started a game inspired by Jack Vance's Dying Earth, which then got more and more influenced by Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun.
Other obligations cropped up for a while, we started Age of Worms soon after, and the campaign went the way of most campaigns: into the Lazy DM Limbo.
But I still have my notes, and I thought someone might find them useful or interesting.
They're really disjointed, since they're compiled from posts to rec.games.frp.dnd and originally edited for an audience that played in the campaign. Sometimes the normal text is mine, and the quoted text is by Mad Afro, a poster on the group who helped me out in working out many of the ideas, and sometimes it's vice versa. But most of the time it should be relatively clear who wrote what, and it's not really important: there are as many of his ideas as there are mine.
But a persistent reader might be able to scavange this for ideas or inspiration.
Anyway, here a short intro, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
The PCs started out as inexperienced everyday folks in an isolated village with a tower of the Imperial Overseer nearby. The Overseer is an undefined not-quite-human who comes out at scheduled intervals to heal folks, give orders and adress issues that might have come up since the last time. And he's been long overdue.
So the PCs broke into the tower, found the Overseer dead and got field-promoted by the village elders into Imperial Undertakers. Conveniently, the tower also contained a magical-looking sarcophagus and hints about special burial chambers to which, in case of death, an Overseer must be taken.
Now, this was supposed to be just a framing story for a game with lots of travel and meeting exotic people and getting screwed over as one chamber after the other is found unusable for some reason, and they're spurred ever on by an inevitable that is trying to force them to perfom their undertakers' duties. Think Cugel's Saga. But my intentions changed completely as the game went on.
Other events in the game important for understanding the notes that follow include the virtual adoption of a small child named Thea whose mother the PCs tried but failed to protect from getting eaten by the monster. (The subplot was lifted almost verbatim from Severian's encounter with the alzabo in Book of the New Sun. Later Thea got kidnapped by an evil cultist, but managed to run away in the capital, only to be taken by the city guard and given (on the assumption that she's an orphan) to the Fleshcrafter's Guild, which are geneticists/transmuters/surgeons/body artists.
Starting ideas on the sarcophagus and the Overseer
Well, the idea is that the hauling of the body in the sarcophagus is the framing story of the entire campaign. Things that might come out of it and be cool:
* the PCs end up as your typical famous mercenary/hero band, complete with followers, and with the coffin as a relic/battle standard of sorts, adding to their mystique and reputation
* the PCs found their own kingdom, and the coffin is the most prized relic of the land
* the PCs finish their quest succesfully, and the Imperial Overseer is renewed to his original stature as a planetar; Planetar-y Imperial Overseer, that is
That's something that's been going through my head today... perhaps the Imperial Overseer is some sort of angelic being, like the Hierodules in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Perhaps fallen from grace, and serving penance? Perhaps the last of his kind to remain on this world?
BTW, this would also neatly solve the problem of raise dead if the campaign is to last past 9th level.
Especially fitting if the Overseer is some sort of celestial creature...
Why run it simple, when you can run it complicated?
Another thing crossed my mind, partly inspired by something one of the players said when they were going through the Overseer's papers in his tower: he started joking and wanting to say, I guess, something like "is there a paper saying 'I finally found the formula of immortality'", he actually said "is there a paper saying 'I finally found the cure for immortality'". I wasn't quite thinking as fast on my feet as I might have, so I said "nice idea, but no". But now... I'm thinking of revising that.
See, perhaps the planetar of Earth somehow captured his solar superior (yes, only one planetar per planet, and one solar per system... perfect for a low level game which this is intended to be, and even if it goes high level, hey, at least the PCs will be really special!) and trapped him in an immortal, but mortal-level body: that of the Imperial Overseer.
Could be that the solar influenced the rise of the now-fallen Empire, acting as an advisor from the shadows, and had the resurrection chambers (which the PCs are trying to find and use on the body) built so he could escape when he finally died. Could be that the planetar helped form the empire, and made the chambers so that the solar in his new body would never truly die and escape. The exact metaphysics are still vague in my mind.
But in any case, because the solar is trapped, the Sun is dying. The planetar is the lord of this world, Rex Mundi, but even his rule is not absolute, as demons from the Dark slip through the cracks, in the twilight of the dying sun.
As the PCs travel in search of a functioning resurrection chamber, they draw the attention of the great forces, both the planetar's servants, the demonic creatures and the few secret allies the solar has.
Finally, there's a big showdown with the planetar, and the party frees the solar... "in what shall be called the last year of the old sun." (With apologies to Gene Wolfe. )
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Wikipedia article on Gnosticism to read.
Mad Afro's ideas on the sarcophagus
some of these pilgrims start demonstrating the ability to cast spells, when they were just simple dirt-farmers before (Taking "Fight Club" as a very loose inspiration here).
Mad Afro's setting background
So bear with me, here:
The solar and the planetar are lovers. This love is as inescapable and ancient as the taboos that forbid it.
Planetars are beautiful, powerful, and immortal. But they are capable of flaws; almost but not quite as perfect as solars. When they discovered the relationship between one of their own and their master; one or more of them grew jealous, and plotted the unthinkable.
Murder was out of the question. Even together, the conspirators could not hope to match the Solar's power, even if they succeeded in catching their prey by surprise, an impossibility in itself. However, they had one weapon that would not fail: the Solar's own utter devotion to both duty and to his beloved.
So, the apostate(s) confronted the Solar and his lover with the truth. It was undeniable, and neither the Solar nor his lover could lie. The apostate(s) demanded a choice of the Solar: "destroy the object of your sin, or release yourself from Grace, and walk as a mortal."
The latter was chosen. Stripped of godhead and all the trappings of his former station, the Solar was reduced to a mortal human. Wracked with despair, the planetar took up his beloved, as the apostate(s) meted out another demand: "As you are our brother and equal, we demand no sacrifice from you, save one. Retain your grace, but cross the boundaries of your world nevermore."
It was done. The planetar exiled himself to Rex Mundi with his mortal beloved. He knew their time together was short; what was a human lifetime compared to a planetar's eons?
The planetar needed aid, but the people of this world were petty and war-torn, although potential that approached true Grace lay within them. So, he and his lover set about to unite the peoples of Rex Mundi into a true Empire, in which genius and innovation would flourish. The mortal became king, then emperor, then Overseer, who alone could call upon the power of the planetar, which the Empire venerated as God; the Overseer as Prophet.
Eventually, by the Overseer's decree and the planetar's wisdom, the resurrection chambers were devised. Since then, the Overseer began a cycle of death and rebirth, and time was reckoned to each.
Millennia passed. All was peaceful. And then...
The Sun began to die.
The leader of the apostate planetars, as powerful as he was, was still no Solar. He could not keep the Sun's flame lit, nor could he and his host prevent the incursion of the Dark, and the hellish things that writhe within. Too late, the apostate(s) realized their stupidity, and one by one, each apostate planetar lost his world to the darkling host.
As the Sun darkened, the people of Rex Mundi fell into fear, despair, and open war. Eventually, the Empire shattered, and each piece fell to ruin from chaos. Though they tried, the Overseer and the planetar could not prevent the destruction of all they had built. Cities crumbled, and even all but one of the resurrection chambers were torn asunder by
angry mobs or armies of men.
Seeing no hope, the planetar and the Overseer stole away with the last chamber, hid, and waited.
Eventually, the rage of mankind petered out into exhaustion, then despair, and finally, acceptance. Old generations died, new ones were born into a world where the sun had always waned, where old customs were yet practiced, although memory faded as to their origins or purpose with each new cycle of death and birth.
The Overseer re-emerged, and began to gather his people once more, but the fire that had once burned so bright within them had long since faded, and only a shell of what they once were remained, living out their lives as automatons, repeating the actions of ancestors, without the benefit of their understanding. The Empire would never be rebuilt.
The planetar went mad in this exile on a dead world under a fading sun, and wanders the lands and seas without purpose or memory. The last resurrection chamber is lost to memory.
The Overseer died, and his passing was marked only by ancient ritual, as a group of adventurers is identified to take on the ancient task appointed to Undertakers, who used to convey the body to be raised anew, but whose purpose was long obscured by time and war.
And thus, the Sun dies, the Empire has fallen, demons knock upon the very door of man.
Is there anyone left who remembers why?
More on the sarcophagus religion
Going back to the bit upthread about the PCs accidentally starting/babysitting a foundling religion; that might be the key to restoring the Solar to glory. It's actually the faith generated by the pilgrims that eventually gives the Solar his devine energy back, it's not the resurrection chamber at all. In this way, the journey across the world actually becomes the critical component in attracting followers and reviving the Overseer; the destination itself is superfluous. Once they reach it, they might have thousands, or even millions of pilgrims in tow, and it is their absolute belief that actually does the resurrecting.
"It's the only way to be sure"
I've been thinking about making the Sun effectively the Positive Energy Plane IMC, and making the Outside (space, more or less) serve as the Negative Energy Plane.
It's Dying Earth, so you could probably find a ruined but repairable spacecraft somewhere, if you dug deep enough.
So what better way to resurrect someone than to chuck him into the Sun? Of course, normal people would just overload on temporary hp and go pop, but the solar of the Sun...
Oh, how easily ideas change when one's DM-ing
Well, originally, I imagined the sarcophagus as truly unimportant (in a grand scheme of things). It, and the inevitable, just serve as a framing story, to give the PCs reason to places.
But once the solar/planetar thing occured to me, I really liked the way it sounded, mostly because of the lovely way the D&D terminology fits with the tentative mythology: the solar as a solar deity, the planetar as an earth deity, solar deity vs. earth deity/earth serpent, Ra vs. Apophis... and ending a campaign with the line that ends Book of the New Sun and getting even a tenth of the reponse the book got from me would be cool beyond belief.
Shades of Planescape: beliefs make the reality
Perhaps the PCs' Overseer isn't even the solar. Perhaps it's just the PCs good deeds, their followers, their mixed hope and despair, that finally bring the New Sun. The PCs discover hints that point to the Overseer being the solar, the sarcophagus starts manifesting magical powers, they turn from semi-random wandering to fighting the good fight, and on the verge of doing whatever seems like it needs to be done to bring the solar back, they discover incontrovertible evidence that the Overseer is just some ancient Imperial official. But something (what?) gives them enough hope/courage/desperation to finish what they're doing... and it works anyway.
Yet more on the sarcophagus religion
I think it works as a low-level, yet epic campaign, in which the end depends on the leadership of the PCs, and the will and faith of the NPCs. You might play up how much the lives of the pilgrims are changing for the better because they are following the sarcophagus; for the first time in their lives, they aren't following some predestined pattern to life. They are meeting other people, learning new things, contributing different skills to the effort and goals of a common faith; very much what organized religion does today, except that they are making things up as they go.
The ongoing pilgrimage might wake the Solar up slowly instead of all at once, and at the end you could even have the Solar literally reborn as a child to one of the pilgrims at a dramatically appropriate time. The New Son, you see.
The planetar, of course, lost in his pride, absolutely wants none of this to happen. He will work to scatter the pilgrims to the winds, destroy the PCs, and completely break the back of this movement...unless the "demons" get there first, and they pretty much want to wipe out everyone. At that point, you can do the dramatic change-of-heart for the planetar if appropriate; it may even be he that has to make some kind of self-sacrifice to ensure the child is born.
Lots of threads have to come together, and none of it will happen if the PCs don't make it happen by carrying their burden.
"Supplies!"
(This title needs a bit of explanation: when they first entered the village where Thea will get kidnapped, they told her to stay under the covers on the carriage and come out only when they yell "Surprise!" Then they proceeded to ask around for supplies. Cue Thea popping out yelling "Supplies!")
Thea, random kid on the road... or is she?
If you want to run with it, you've got lots of options, depending on how important you want this kid to end up.
- She could be the Solar, reincarnated into a new body. She currently has no knowledge or memory of this, and it will take a tremendous amount of positive energy (generated by the pilgrimage, perhaps) to "awaken" her.
- As above, but she is fully aware of her status and destiny. However, this does not change the fact that she's still a six-year-old girl with six-year-old-girl thoughts, attitudes, fears, and temper tantrums. I'm lifting this inspiration from the Child Goddess Aphrael in Eddings' Elenium and Tamuli trilogies. She was lovable, a great character, and a total brat. Lots of fun. You could write up the Solar as a (really unbalanced) monster class and add power to her as she gets older and gains XP, as long as the pilgrimage remains together. However, the New Sun will not be reborn until she achieves complete Solar status at the end of the journey.
- She could be destined to become mother to the Solar and the New Sun. This will add some years to your campaign, presuming you want the girl to become an adult before bearing a child. You could do the whole virgin birth concept, and turn the girl into a saint in her own right. Go whole hog; stigmata, apparitions, etc. Lots of BoED potential.
- She could be a prophet that will herald the coming of the New Sun, and is unconsciously aware of how, when, and under what circumstances the Solar will be reborn. She could have visions, waking dreams, or she could speak in tongues, "channeling" the Solar and speaking portents in the celestial's voice. Naturally, she has no memory of any of this after each episode. This option would help you nudge the party along, drop hints or riddles, etc.
Yet more on Thea
As for time, yes, ten or so years is quite a bit, but there's plenty of precedent in Wolfe for wacky time-warping, so I wouldn't be above having Thea disappear someplace where years pass for her for each day the PCs experience...
Or the PCs might get thrown into a dungeon "... and ten years pass before you get the chance you've been hoping for: the guard that brings you food today..." A bit heavy handed perhaps.
Or Thea might get thrown into a dungeon, one especially designed for those you don't want to kill (there's all sorts of reasons why people might be leery of killing the Mother of the New Sun) but want to see dead: time is drasticly sped up in the cells and when the PC rescue her after ten days, she's sixteen...? That way, the villains actually play a part in making the New Sun come about more quickly, which I feel is appropriate.
On cats
(Thea also came with a cat, which the wizard was trying to make into his familiar.)
A raven or a snake might represent wisdom, a hawk has some solar connotations (Horus)... but how does a cat fit in? Cats are lazy, sexy, sneaky, good hunters... Not much here that really fits the general solar/pseudo-Christian theme. And what I know about mythology doesn't help either, cats don't seem to feature much.
... except that I've now read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bast_(goddess)
and it says:
"As protectress, she was seen as defender of the pharaoh, and consequently of the chief god, Ra, who was a solar deity, gaining her the titles Lady of flame, and Eye of Ra. Bast was originally a goddess of the sun, but later changed by the Greeks to a goddess of the moon."
Hmmm.
Fleshcrafters
Instead, you could take the long view. Assuming they fail to extract Thea from the Fleshcrafter's Guild, you may have unwittingly given yourself a way out of the girl's aging dilemma that we were talking about earlier. She needs to be mature enough to bear the Solar as a child, correct? The Fleshcrafter's Guild might be capable of advancing her age, correct? Perhaps there is a less-than-ethical cabal of Dr. Mengele types in that guild that are not above using stray children for experiments, and it might be they who do something to speed Thea up to the child-bearing age, and then they would get more than they bargained for when she suddenly becomes pregnant.
So, the PCs might get a second chance to rescue her if they catch wind of what's happening. Working out the internal poliltics of this guild, perhaps an intern or apprentice discovers that some kind of bizarre experimentation is being done on the girl (the nature of which he may not be entirely certain), and wants to do something about it, but is powerless. However, he might remember that the PCs once came calling for her, or discovers this fact while looking through daily records. The apprentice might try to track down the party in the hopes that they still care about Thea enough to come and get her.
How exactly they do that is their problem, but the apprentice would likely be able to help with that. If the extraction works out, the PCs acquire Thea as a woman, or nearly so. Her exact condition would depend on how well the Fleshcrafters succeeded in their experiments, and/or how quickly the PCs reach her.
Other outcomes may include exposing the bad apples in the guild, who would be summarily punished. I hate to dwell upon the possible methods of punishment, though the Remade in "Perdido Street Station" leap to mind. >
Alternately, the surgeons that do this to Thea aren't evil at all, but are working for the cause of the New Sun, and events were actually engineered toward getting the girl there. This would require a lot more retrofitting, but could work.
A minor sidequest
If they go by land, there's an isolated village of constructs that uses humans as slaves, and doesn't treat them very nicely. But if they help the slaves, they will find out they are, in fact, extremely life-like constructs, and that the constructs are humans augmented with spellshaped steel and wood. Does that make their deeds any less worthwhile?
The first slave they meet was supposed to be a woman named Beth. A rather unassuming name, right? And the others would be called Gimel, Lamed, Samekh, Resh... and all would have the appropriate symbol tattooed somewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet
Getting followers for the sarcophagus religion
Oooor, the rescuees are so bizarrely malformed now that no one else will tolerate them. Thus, the Undertakers' group acquires a troupe of sideshow freaks that are otherwise decent, hardworking people. It could add to their mystique, which could be a good or bad thing.
Final version of the setting background
BTW, I think I've mostly figured out the Big Picture for the background, with a satisfyingly vague place for the sarcophagus and the Overseer, so that it works even if we/they finally decide to go Vance instead of Wolfe and just wander around and learn a bit of the history. Not sure why I was so hell-bent on whipping them into emergent saints already, then.
Anyway, there was no Solar. The greatest ruler Earth has ever seen was Typhon, the Planetar, Rex Mundi.
Chiliads ago, while he was still human, his realm is visited by strange, angelic visitors which offer hints about humanity needing to transcend itself to ascend to a higher plane of being.
Typhon's consort Echidna, a brilliant fleshcrafter, sets about moulding herself, her husband and a myriad other subjects towards the excellence the Hierodules speak of, as she understands it. But success is never complete, since while Echidna is master over flesh, a transformation of the spirit is also required. She can barely manage to elevate her spouse
to what she terms the Planetar level... the Sun, her next goal, seems forever out of reach.
Frustrated, Echidna urges Typhon to pour more and more resources into her research, and the constantly simmering rebellions in the hard to reach parts of the empire become a serious issue and start threatening Typhon's dominion over the world.
In just such a time, another embassy, with a discernibly yet undefinably different air about them than the first, approaches Echidna and Typhon. They offer new secrets of fleshcrafting, apparent new avenues of research independent of spiritual concerns, and also designs for weapon against the rebels, a Black Worm that can be used to hold the very Sun ransom.
So Typhon builds the weapon, and Echidna dives headlong into her new studies. But they are betrayed: the Outsiders release the Worm and it buries itself in the Sun and begins to devour it from within. The rebels, with little left to lose now, redouble their efforts and bring down Typhon's empire... but they can now do little but wait for the Sun to go out.
An unspecified amout of time passes... and it's now the Now of the campaign.
The Hierodules are celestials, descendants of humanity from a future where humanity finally does transcend (some of) its limitations.
The Outsiders are mind flayers, demons, all sorts of nasty things, from another future, one where the Sun gutters out and Earth is eternally dark.
Both probably have a difficult time sustaining themselves in the present, so they work to enforce their own timeline through hints and manipulations instead of outright warfare.
Echidna is probably something like a tweaked marilith, probably trapped somewhere in stasis under the polar ice, imprisoned by Typhon for convincing him to trust the Outsiders.
Typhon is probably something like a tweaked planetar, and he might be dead, or imprisoned by the rebels, or a bit of both ("that is not dead which can eternal lie").
The rebels might have been genuine good guys, or (more likely) pawns for the Outsiders.
The current Empire might be a successor state of Typhon's, or a creation of the rebels.
The Overseer in the sarcophagus might be a Hierodule whose dead body or living knowledge could be instrumental in bringing the new Sun, or even Typhon himself imprisoned without memory of his once greatness by the rebels, or just some unfortunate Imperial Overseer whose only function is to prod the PCs into their trek accross the continent.
The defined part of the backstory makes some sense overall, and is reasonably engaging even if you're not in the middle of it saving the world but just catching glimpses of history in lost libraries &c.
The "might be" parts could be defined and fixed according to need and player interest and are all independed enough of the main story that defining them shouldn't require heavy retrofitting of the main story.
I hope.
On time travel
Of course, this isn't exactly a closed loop... if the PCs (or anyone else) manages to bring about the New Sun and close the Hierodule loop, the Outsiders (I think they might need a better name, BTW...) should never come to be, so they shouldn't be messing around with the
present...
Unless... they're coming from even further into the future...
And a bit more
Another interpretation, ramping up the creepiness a bit.
The Hierodules are equal parts aliens and angels, strange beings from afar who want to help humanity transcend it's limitations.
The Outsiders are assumed to be similar, only bad.
In the end, the good guys win, the New Sun comes... and then the Outsiders are found out to come from the Earth's future.
No paradox... and no happy end.
Final idea for the big reveal/campaign finale
Perhaps the Imperial Overseer is in fact the Overseer of the Empire, the Emperor himself? And the quest is a test of worthiness for a potential heir?
Maybe the Emperors are always chosen from among the undertakers, to be stewards of the Dying Earth? And the chambers the PCs are looking for have something to do with this, being chapels for anointment of rulers as much as crematoriums?
Maybe what the PCs need to do to bring the New Sun is bring Thea up as a decent person and a healer (they've already taken steps in that direction), and help her ascend the throne as the non-undertaker Empress, Euryphaessa I, the Mother of the New Sun? Maybe that could represent (part of) the spiritual element of self-improvement spoken of by the Hierodules: a willingness of the undertaker to step back to allow the healer to rule humanity?
Other obligations cropped up for a while, we started Age of Worms soon after, and the campaign went the way of most campaigns: into the Lazy DM Limbo.
But I still have my notes, and I thought someone might find them useful or interesting.
They're really disjointed, since they're compiled from posts to rec.games.frp.dnd and originally edited for an audience that played in the campaign. Sometimes the normal text is mine, and the quoted text is by Mad Afro, a poster on the group who helped me out in working out many of the ideas, and sometimes it's vice versa. But most of the time it should be relatively clear who wrote what, and it's not really important: there are as many of his ideas as there are mine.
But a persistent reader might be able to scavange this for ideas or inspiration.
Anyway, here a short intro, and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
The PCs started out as inexperienced everyday folks in an isolated village with a tower of the Imperial Overseer nearby. The Overseer is an undefined not-quite-human who comes out at scheduled intervals to heal folks, give orders and adress issues that might have come up since the last time. And he's been long overdue.
So the PCs broke into the tower, found the Overseer dead and got field-promoted by the village elders into Imperial Undertakers. Conveniently, the tower also contained a magical-looking sarcophagus and hints about special burial chambers to which, in case of death, an Overseer must be taken.
Now, this was supposed to be just a framing story for a game with lots of travel and meeting exotic people and getting screwed over as one chamber after the other is found unusable for some reason, and they're spurred ever on by an inevitable that is trying to force them to perfom their undertakers' duties. Think Cugel's Saga. But my intentions changed completely as the game went on.
Other events in the game important for understanding the notes that follow include the virtual adoption of a small child named Thea whose mother the PCs tried but failed to protect from getting eaten by the monster. (The subplot was lifted almost verbatim from Severian's encounter with the alzabo in Book of the New Sun. Later Thea got kidnapped by an evil cultist, but managed to run away in the capital, only to be taken by the city guard and given (on the assumption that she's an orphan) to the Fleshcrafter's Guild, which are geneticists/transmuters/surgeons/body artists.
Starting ideas on the sarcophagus and the Overseer
Well, the idea is that the hauling of the body in the sarcophagus is the framing story of the entire campaign. Things that might come out of it and be cool:
* the PCs end up as your typical famous mercenary/hero band, complete with followers, and with the coffin as a relic/battle standard of sorts, adding to their mystique and reputation
* the PCs found their own kingdom, and the coffin is the most prized relic of the land
* the PCs finish their quest succesfully, and the Imperial Overseer is renewed to his original stature as a planetar; Planetar-y Imperial Overseer, that is
That's something that's been going through my head today... perhaps the Imperial Overseer is some sort of angelic being, like the Hierodules in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Perhaps fallen from grace, and serving penance? Perhaps the last of his kind to remain on this world?
BTW, this would also neatly solve the problem of raise dead if the campaign is to last past 9th level.
Oh, most definitely. People trying (or even succeeding!) to steal the corpse and/or coffin (very valuable looking, gems &c.) is definitely a plot I'm planning to use.
Especially fitting if the Overseer is some sort of celestial creature...
The idea is the the Empire is collapsed already, pretty much. The construct is one of the few relics, perhaps even malfunctioning (which give me leave to let the PCs off the hook occasionally, or get even more annoying, as the situation warrants).
Why run it simple, when you can run it complicated?
Another thing crossed my mind, partly inspired by something one of the players said when they were going through the Overseer's papers in his tower: he started joking and wanting to say, I guess, something like "is there a paper saying 'I finally found the formula of immortality'", he actually said "is there a paper saying 'I finally found the cure for immortality'". I wasn't quite thinking as fast on my feet as I might have, so I said "nice idea, but no". But now... I'm thinking of revising that.
See, perhaps the planetar of Earth somehow captured his solar superior (yes, only one planetar per planet, and one solar per system... perfect for a low level game which this is intended to be, and even if it goes high level, hey, at least the PCs will be really special!) and trapped him in an immortal, but mortal-level body: that of the Imperial Overseer.
Could be that the solar influenced the rise of the now-fallen Empire, acting as an advisor from the shadows, and had the resurrection chambers (which the PCs are trying to find and use on the body) built so he could escape when he finally died. Could be that the planetar helped form the empire, and made the chambers so that the solar in his new body would never truly die and escape. The exact metaphysics are still vague in my mind.
But in any case, because the solar is trapped, the Sun is dying. The planetar is the lord of this world, Rex Mundi, but even his rule is not absolute, as demons from the Dark slip through the cracks, in the twilight of the dying sun.
As the PCs travel in search of a functioning resurrection chamber, they draw the attention of the great forces, both the planetar's servants, the demonic creatures and the few secret allies the solar has.
Finally, there's a big showdown with the planetar, and the party frees the solar... "in what shall be called the last year of the old sun." (With apologies to Gene Wolfe.
)Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Wikipedia article on Gnosticism to read.
Mad Afro's ideas on the sarcophagus
If you can accept an "Imbued Items" concept, the sarcophagus could slowly become enchanted with some kind of group benefit as long as the party carries it around. Ultimately at high levels, the thing could be your campaign's Ark of the Covenant.
Or, they found their own *religion.* This might not even be voluntary; as they go, they might start picking up followers based on the Undertakers' legend at first, but then things grow into a singular cult following around an ever-evolving ethos. Eventually, they notice that
some of these pilgrims start demonstrating the ability to cast spells, when they were just simple dirt-farmers before (Taking "Fight Club" as a very loose inspiration here).
Mad Afro's setting background
So bear with me, here:
The solar and the planetar are lovers. This love is as inescapable and ancient as the taboos that forbid it.
Planetars are beautiful, powerful, and immortal. But they are capable of flaws; almost but not quite as perfect as solars. When they discovered the relationship between one of their own and their master; one or more of them grew jealous, and plotted the unthinkable.
Murder was out of the question. Even together, the conspirators could not hope to match the Solar's power, even if they succeeded in catching their prey by surprise, an impossibility in itself. However, they had one weapon that would not fail: the Solar's own utter devotion to both duty and to his beloved.
So, the apostate(s) confronted the Solar and his lover with the truth. It was undeniable, and neither the Solar nor his lover could lie. The apostate(s) demanded a choice of the Solar: "destroy the object of your sin, or release yourself from Grace, and walk as a mortal."
The latter was chosen. Stripped of godhead and all the trappings of his former station, the Solar was reduced to a mortal human. Wracked with despair, the planetar took up his beloved, as the apostate(s) meted out another demand: "As you are our brother and equal, we demand no sacrifice from you, save one. Retain your grace, but cross the boundaries of your world nevermore."
It was done. The planetar exiled himself to Rex Mundi with his mortal beloved. He knew their time together was short; what was a human lifetime compared to a planetar's eons?
The planetar needed aid, but the people of this world were petty and war-torn, although potential that approached true Grace lay within them. So, he and his lover set about to unite the peoples of Rex Mundi into a true Empire, in which genius and innovation would flourish. The mortal became king, then emperor, then Overseer, who alone could call upon the power of the planetar, which the Empire venerated as God; the Overseer as Prophet.
Eventually, by the Overseer's decree and the planetar's wisdom, the resurrection chambers were devised. Since then, the Overseer began a cycle of death and rebirth, and time was reckoned to each.
Millennia passed. All was peaceful. And then...
The Sun began to die.
The leader of the apostate planetars, as powerful as he was, was still no Solar. He could not keep the Sun's flame lit, nor could he and his host prevent the incursion of the Dark, and the hellish things that writhe within. Too late, the apostate(s) realized their stupidity, and one by one, each apostate planetar lost his world to the darkling host.
As the Sun darkened, the people of Rex Mundi fell into fear, despair, and open war. Eventually, the Empire shattered, and each piece fell to ruin from chaos. Though they tried, the Overseer and the planetar could not prevent the destruction of all they had built. Cities crumbled, and even all but one of the resurrection chambers were torn asunder by
angry mobs or armies of men.
Seeing no hope, the planetar and the Overseer stole away with the last chamber, hid, and waited.
Eventually, the rage of mankind petered out into exhaustion, then despair, and finally, acceptance. Old generations died, new ones were born into a world where the sun had always waned, where old customs were yet practiced, although memory faded as to their origins or purpose with each new cycle of death and birth.
The Overseer re-emerged, and began to gather his people once more, but the fire that had once burned so bright within them had long since faded, and only a shell of what they once were remained, living out their lives as automatons, repeating the actions of ancestors, without the benefit of their understanding. The Empire would never be rebuilt.
The planetar went mad in this exile on a dead world under a fading sun, and wanders the lands and seas without purpose or memory. The last resurrection chamber is lost to memory.
The Overseer died, and his passing was marked only by ancient ritual, as a group of adventurers is identified to take on the ancient task appointed to Undertakers, who used to convey the body to be raised anew, but whose purpose was long obscured by time and war.
And thus, the Sun dies, the Empire has fallen, demons knock upon the very door of man.
Is there anyone left who remembers why?
More on the sarcophagus religion
Going back to the bit upthread about the PCs accidentally starting/babysitting a foundling religion; that might be the key to restoring the Solar to glory. It's actually the faith generated by the pilgrims that eventually gives the Solar his devine energy back, it's not the resurrection chamber at all. In this way, the journey across the world actually becomes the critical component in attracting followers and reviving the Overseer; the destination itself is superfluous. Once they reach it, they might have thousands, or even millions of pilgrims in tow, and it is their absolute belief that actually does the resurrecting.
"It's the only way to be sure"
This actually isn't as crazy as it sounds.
I've been thinking about making the Sun effectively the Positive Energy Plane IMC, and making the Outside (space, more or less) serve as the Negative Energy Plane.
It's Dying Earth, so you could probably find a ruined but repairable spacecraft somewhere, if you dug deep enough.
So what better way to resurrect someone than to chuck him into the Sun? Of course, normal people would just overload on temporary hp and go pop, but the solar of the Sun...
Oh, how easily ideas change when one's DM-ing
Well, originally, I imagined the sarcophagus as truly unimportant (in a grand scheme of things). It, and the inevitable, just serve as a framing story, to give the PCs reason to places.
But once the solar/planetar thing occured to me, I really liked the way it sounded, mostly because of the lovely way the D&D terminology fits with the tentative mythology: the solar as a solar deity, the planetar as an earth deity, solar deity vs. earth deity/earth serpent, Ra vs. Apophis... and ending a campaign with the line that ends Book of the New Sun and getting even a tenth of the reponse the book got from me would be cool beyond belief.
Shades of Planescape: beliefs make the reality
Perhaps the PCs' Overseer isn't even the solar. Perhaps it's just the PCs good deeds, their followers, their mixed hope and despair, that finally bring the New Sun. The PCs discover hints that point to the Overseer being the solar, the sarcophagus starts manifesting magical powers, they turn from semi-random wandering to fighting the good fight, and on the verge of doing whatever seems like it needs to be done to bring the solar back, they discover incontrovertible evidence that the Overseer is just some ancient Imperial official. But something (what?) gives them enough hope/courage/desperation to finish what they're doing... and it works anyway.
Yet more on the sarcophagus religion
I think it works as a low-level, yet epic campaign, in which the end depends on the leadership of the PCs, and the will and faith of the NPCs. You might play up how much the lives of the pilgrims are changing for the better because they are following the sarcophagus; for the first time in their lives, they aren't following some predestined pattern to life. They are meeting other people, learning new things, contributing different skills to the effort and goals of a common faith; very much what organized religion does today, except that they are making things up as they go.
The ongoing pilgrimage might wake the Solar up slowly instead of all at once, and at the end you could even have the Solar literally reborn as a child to one of the pilgrims at a dramatically appropriate time. The New Son, you see.
The planetar, of course, lost in his pride, absolutely wants none of this to happen. He will work to scatter the pilgrims to the winds, destroy the PCs, and completely break the back of this movement...unless the "demons" get there first, and they pretty much want to wipe out everyone. At that point, you can do the dramatic change-of-heart for the planetar if appropriate; it may even be he that has to make some kind of self-sacrifice to ensure the child is born.
Lots of threads have to come together, and none of it will happen if the PCs don't make it happen by carrying their burden.
"Supplies!"
(This title needs a bit of explanation: when they first entered the village where Thea will get kidnapped, they told her to stay under the covers on the carriage and come out only when they yell "Surprise!" Then they proceeded to ask around for supplies. Cue Thea popping out yelling "Supplies!"
)... wha!?
Completely!
Well, I wasn't planning anything particular when I picked the name, but perhaps one needs to take these hints when they come...
Thea, random kid on the road... or is she?
Well, it would be a shame to waste such an accident.Perhaps... but I really don't think so! I mean, I don't recall ever knowing that Thea was a figure from Greek mythology, much less that she was connected to the Sun.As an admitted mythology geek, maybe you did it subconsciously.
If you want to run with it, you've got lots of options, depending on how important you want this kid to end up.
- She could be the Solar, reincarnated into a new body. She currently has no knowledge or memory of this, and it will take a tremendous amount of positive energy (generated by the pilgrimage, perhaps) to "awaken" her.
- As above, but she is fully aware of her status and destiny. However, this does not change the fact that she's still a six-year-old girl with six-year-old-girl thoughts, attitudes, fears, and temper tantrums. I'm lifting this inspiration from the Child Goddess Aphrael in Eddings' Elenium and Tamuli trilogies. She was lovable, a great character, and a total brat. Lots of fun. You could write up the Solar as a (really unbalanced) monster class and add power to her as she gets older and gains XP, as long as the pilgrimage remains together. However, the New Sun will not be reborn until she achieves complete Solar status at the end of the journey.
- She could be destined to become mother to the Solar and the New Sun. This will add some years to your campaign, presuming you want the girl to become an adult before bearing a child. You could do the whole virgin birth concept, and turn the girl into a saint in her own right. Go whole hog; stigmata, apparitions, etc. Lots of BoED potential.
- She could be a prophet that will herald the coming of the New Sun, and is unconsciously aware of how, when, and under what circumstances the Solar will be reborn. She could have visions, waking dreams, or she could speak in tongues, "channeling" the Solar and speaking portents in the celestial's voice. Naturally, she has no memory of any of this after each episode. This option would help you nudge the party along, drop hints or riddles, etc.
Yet more on Thea
At this point, I like this one best. Both because it most closely parallels the Greek naming, and because I think that in the others, the girl takes a bit of the PCs spotlight: she's the Solar (or the Solar's herald), and they're "just" her guardians and teachers.
As for time, yes, ten or so years is quite a bit, but there's plenty of precedent in Wolfe for wacky time-warping, so I wouldn't be above having Thea disappear someplace where years pass for her for each day the PCs experience...
Or the PCs might get thrown into a dungeon "... and ten years pass before you get the chance you've been hoping for: the guard that brings you food today..." A bit heavy handed perhaps.
Or Thea might get thrown into a dungeon, one especially designed for those you don't want to kill (there's all sorts of reasons why people might be leery of killing the Mother of the New Sun) but want to see dead: time is drasticly sped up in the cells and when the PC rescue her after ten days, she's sixteen...? That way, the villains actually play a part in making the New Sun come about more quickly, which I feel is appropriate.
On cats
(Thea also came with a cat, which the wizard was trying to make into his familiar.)
I've just been thinking about that... but I'm not really coming up with much, for cats.
A raven or a snake might represent wisdom, a hawk has some solar connotations (Horus)... but how does a cat fit in? Cats are lazy, sexy, sneaky, good hunters... Not much here that really fits the general solar/pseudo-Christian theme. And what I know about mythology doesn't help either, cats don't seem to feature much.
... except that I've now read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bast_(goddess)
and it says:
"As protectress, she was seen as defender of the pharaoh, and consequently of the chief god, Ra, who was a solar deity, gaining her the titles Lady of flame, and Eye of Ra. Bast was originally a goddess of the sun, but later changed by the Greeks to a goddess of the moon."
Hmmm.
Fleshcrafters
Instead, you could take the long view. Assuming they fail to extract Thea from the Fleshcrafter's Guild, you may have unwittingly given yourself a way out of the girl's aging dilemma that we were talking about earlier. She needs to be mature enough to bear the Solar as a child, correct? The Fleshcrafter's Guild might be capable of advancing her age, correct? Perhaps there is a less-than-ethical cabal of Dr. Mengele types in that guild that are not above using stray children for experiments, and it might be they who do something to speed Thea up to the child-bearing age, and then they would get more than they bargained for when she suddenly becomes pregnant.
So, the PCs might get a second chance to rescue her if they catch wind of what's happening. Working out the internal poliltics of this guild, perhaps an intern or apprentice discovers that some kind of bizarre experimentation is being done on the girl (the nature of which he may not be entirely certain), and wants to do something about it, but is powerless. However, he might remember that the PCs once came calling for her, or discovers this fact while looking through daily records. The apprentice might try to track down the party in the hopes that they still care about Thea enough to come and get her.
How exactly they do that is their problem, but the apprentice would likely be able to help with that. If the extraction works out, the PCs acquire Thea as a woman, or nearly so. Her exact condition would depend on how well the Fleshcrafters succeeded in their experiments, and/or how quickly the PCs reach her.
Other outcomes may include exposing the bad apples in the guild, who would be summarily punished. I hate to dwell upon the possible methods of punishment, though the Remade in "Perdido Street Station" leap to mind. >
Alternately, the surgeons that do this to Thea aren't evil at all, but are working for the cause of the New Sun, and events were actually engineered toward getting the girl there. This would require a lot more retrofitting, but could work.
A minor sidequest
If they go by land, there's an isolated village of constructs that uses humans as slaves, and doesn't treat them very nicely. But if they help the slaves, they will find out they are, in fact, extremely life-like constructs, and that the constructs are humans augmented with spellshaped steel and wood. Does that make their deeds any less worthwhile?
The first slave they meet was supposed to be a woman named Beth. A rather unassuming name, right? And the others would be called Gimel, Lamed, Samekh, Resh... and all would have the appropriate symbol tattooed somewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet
Getting followers for the sarcophagus religion
Oooor, the rescuees are so bizarrely malformed now that no one else will tolerate them. Thus, the Undertakers' group acquires a troupe of sideshow freaks that are otherwise decent, hardworking people. It could add to their mystique, which could be a good or bad thing.
Final version of the setting background
BTW, I think I've mostly figured out the Big Picture for the background, with a satisfyingly vague place for the sarcophagus and the Overseer, so that it works even if we/they finally decide to go Vance instead of Wolfe and just wander around and learn a bit of the history. Not sure why I was so hell-bent on whipping them into emergent saints already, then.
Anyway, there was no Solar. The greatest ruler Earth has ever seen was Typhon, the Planetar, Rex Mundi.
Chiliads ago, while he was still human, his realm is visited by strange, angelic visitors which offer hints about humanity needing to transcend itself to ascend to a higher plane of being.
Typhon's consort Echidna, a brilliant fleshcrafter, sets about moulding herself, her husband and a myriad other subjects towards the excellence the Hierodules speak of, as she understands it. But success is never complete, since while Echidna is master over flesh, a transformation of the spirit is also required. She can barely manage to elevate her spouse
to what she terms the Planetar level... the Sun, her next goal, seems forever out of reach.
Frustrated, Echidna urges Typhon to pour more and more resources into her research, and the constantly simmering rebellions in the hard to reach parts of the empire become a serious issue and start threatening Typhon's dominion over the world.
In just such a time, another embassy, with a discernibly yet undefinably different air about them than the first, approaches Echidna and Typhon. They offer new secrets of fleshcrafting, apparent new avenues of research independent of spiritual concerns, and also designs for weapon against the rebels, a Black Worm that can be used to hold the very Sun ransom.
So Typhon builds the weapon, and Echidna dives headlong into her new studies. But they are betrayed: the Outsiders release the Worm and it buries itself in the Sun and begins to devour it from within. The rebels, with little left to lose now, redouble their efforts and bring down Typhon's empire... but they can now do little but wait for the Sun to go out.
An unspecified amout of time passes... and it's now the Now of the campaign.
The Hierodules are celestials, descendants of humanity from a future where humanity finally does transcend (some of) its limitations.
The Outsiders are mind flayers, demons, all sorts of nasty things, from another future, one where the Sun gutters out and Earth is eternally dark.
Both probably have a difficult time sustaining themselves in the present, so they work to enforce their own timeline through hints and manipulations instead of outright warfare.
Echidna is probably something like a tweaked marilith, probably trapped somewhere in stasis under the polar ice, imprisoned by Typhon for convincing him to trust the Outsiders.
Typhon is probably something like a tweaked planetar, and he might be dead, or imprisoned by the rebels, or a bit of both ("that is not dead which can eternal lie").
The rebels might have been genuine good guys, or (more likely) pawns for the Outsiders.
The current Empire might be a successor state of Typhon's, or a creation of the rebels.
The Overseer in the sarcophagus might be a Hierodule whose dead body or living knowledge could be instrumental in bringing the new Sun, or even Typhon himself imprisoned without memory of his once greatness by the rebels, or just some unfortunate Imperial Overseer whose only function is to prod the PCs into their trek accross the continent.
The defined part of the backstory makes some sense overall, and is reasonably engaging even if you're not in the middle of it saving the world but just catching glimpses of history in lost libraries &c.
The "might be" parts could be defined and fixed according to need and player interest and are all independed enough of the main story that defining them shouldn't require heavy retrofitting of the main story.
I hope.
On time travel
Of course, this isn't exactly a closed loop... if the PCs (or anyone else) manages to bring about the New Sun and close the Hierodule loop, the Outsiders (I think they might need a better name, BTW...) should never come to be, so they shouldn't be messing around with the
present...
Unless... they're coming from even further into the future...
And a bit more
Another interpretation, ramping up the creepiness a bit.
The Hierodules are equal parts aliens and angels, strange beings from afar who want to help humanity transcend it's limitations.
The Outsiders are assumed to be similar, only bad.
In the end, the good guys win, the New Sun comes... and then the Outsiders are found out to come from the Earth's future.
No paradox... and no happy end.
Final idea for the big reveal/campaign finale
Perhaps the Imperial Overseer is in fact the Overseer of the Empire, the Emperor himself? And the quest is a test of worthiness for a potential heir?
Maybe the Emperors are always chosen from among the undertakers, to be stewards of the Dying Earth? And the chambers the PCs are looking for have something to do with this, being chapels for anointment of rulers as much as crematoriums?
Maybe what the PCs need to do to bring the New Sun is bring Thea up as a decent person and a healer (they've already taken steps in that direction), and help her ascend the throne as the non-undertaker Empress, Euryphaessa I, the Mother of the New Sun? Maybe that could represent (part of) the spiritual element of self-improvement spoken of by the Hierodules: a willingness of the undertaker to step back to allow the healer to rule humanity?
Last edited:
